Lakers

= ﻿Lakers  =
 * =2008-2009 [[image:lakerssss.jpg width="212" height="231" align="left"]]=

In Los Angeles, winning championships is always the goal. With the allstar talent provided by Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum, the Lakers were expecting a championshp.
== The team won its first seven games, went 14-1 in November. They had a 42-10 record going into the All-Star break. For the second straight January, L.A. got some terrible news when Andrew Bynum went out with another knee injury, once again against Memphis, though the 7-footer did return with four games left in the regular season and played the whole playoffs. == == Lakers had key wins at Boston and Cleveland as L.A. showed its swagger on the road. The Lakers ended the season by going 7-1 in April and having the top seed.The lakers would play a First Round matchup with the Utah Jazz. == == The Jazz only won Game 3 as L.A. went on with a 4-1 series win, but Ron Artest led the Houston Rockets and forced the Lakers to seven games, L.A. winning Game 5 by 40 and Game 7 by 19 to set up a Western Finals matchup with Denver. The Nuggets stole Game 2 with a 106-103 win at Staples Center, but L.A. regained home court advantage with a 103-97 Game 3 win. The Lakers dropped Game 4, but won Game 5 by nine at home before closing the series out with a dominant 119-92 Game 6 win in Denver. == == Awaiting the Lakers in the NBA Finals were the Orlando Magic, whom L.A. beat pretty bad in Games 1 and 2 before the Magic came back in Game 3 with a 108-104 win. Then came the turning point of the series, when Orlando held a five-point lead in the final minute of Game 4, but fell victim to a huge crunch-time performance from Derek Fisher that featured two big three-pointers, the first tying the game to force OT and the second putting the game away. Then came L.A.'s championship-winning Game 5 performance, a 99-86 victory that received the 15th title in franchise history. ==

=**2009-10: Back-to-Back**= ==**As had already happened 15 times in franchise history, the Lakers entered an NBA season as the champions of basketball, returning all but one player from the 2008-09 title-winning team with the goal of defending their title.**==

**The roster move saw Trevor Ariza go to Houston and Ron Artest – still maybe the league's top on-ball defender – join Derek Fisher, Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum in the starting line up.**
==**The Lakers overcame an early hamstring injury to Gasol to open the season 23-4, 11 of those wins coming in consecutive streaks when the Gasol returned. The Lakers headed into the All-Star break at 41-13, very far on top of the Western Conference, with Bryant and Gasol leading the team in Dallas.**== ==Thanks to **Phil Jackson, the Lakers never lost their confidence. Two straight road losses allowed Oklahoma City to tie L.A.'s first round series at two, but the losses wakeed up the Lakers, who ran off 10 straight postseason wins to beat the Thunder 4-2, sweeping the Jazz 4-0 and going up 2-0 on the Suns in the Western Finals. Phoenix battled back to win two games at home, Artest tipped in Bryant's last-second miss to give L.A. a Game 5 victory.** **With their return to the championship came a chance to avenge the team's painful 2008 Finals loss to the Boston Celtics, and thought it took seven hard fought games, L.A. came out with an 83-79 Game 7 victory that saw purple and gold streamers rain down from the Staples Center.**== ==**The Lakers opened the Finals with an great 102-89 Game 1 win, but lost 103-94 in Game 2 when Boston's Ray Allen hit seven first half three-pointers. Home court advantage was quickly taken back, however, with a big 91-84 victory in Game 3 at Boston thanks to Fisher's 11-point fourth quarter. Boston came back to barely win Games 4 and 5 in Boston, before the Lakers beat the Celtics with a terrific 89-67 win in Game 6. The Lakers overcame being down 13 points in the third quarter in Game 7, made by late three-pointers from Fisher and Artest and the play of Gasol and Bryant. The lakers won the game!** **Phil Jackson had won his 11th championship as a coach and the Lakers were champions of basketball for the 16th time.**== ||  ||